From year to year, there is an increase in the alarming news of the rising abuse of substances with narcotic effects, e.g., hashish, opium, morphine, morphine derivatives, heroin, cocaine, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and so forth. Experts in this field have no appreciable difficulty in detecting narcotics in a well-equipped laboratory, since gas and thin-layer chromatography, ultraviolet, infrared, nuclear resonance, and mass spectrometry permit an exact characterization and identification of the individual narcotics. However, such an array of instruments is expensive and cumbersome, since the time consumed for the investigations is considerable. Consequently, there is a need for a rapid and reliable test which will prermit the government agencies involved in combating the trading in and consumption of narcotics to qualitatively indentify the most common narcotics outside of the laboratory.
Reagents for the detection of various narcotics are known in the literature. For example, see Arch. Toxikol. 25, 19 (1969), J. Pharm. Sci. 56, 1526 (1967). The most frequently employed determination methods involve color reactions which are more or less specific to certain narcotics. The conventional analytical use of color reactions comprises the preparation of the required reagents and other procedures relating to laboratory technique and apparatus which, in addition to being time-consuming, are difficult and therefore must be executed by experienced personnel. Thus, the use of these conventional procedures for the identification of substances suspected of being narcotics at the immediate location is unsuitable for an amateur. Additionally, the conventional ready-for-use reagents have only a very limited stability.
It has now been found that these disadvantages can be avoided by using, for the detection of the most common narcotics, the detection method and product of this invention.